Summary

Each year, millions of people -- mostly women -- care for dying loved ones. Through surprising statistics, compassionate advice, and compelling interviews with 14 people, from family members who nursed a dying relative to professionals who regularly aid the terminally ill, this unique book shows caregivers what to expect and how to cope. It also suggests ways others can best support the caregivers in their tasks.

Booklist Review

These books take different approaches to exploring that inescapable life event, the death of a loved one. My Mother Dying is a very personal look at the relationship between a journalist and her mother, who died of esophageal cancer. Johnson gave up her career in New York to return to Minneapolis and care for her dying mother, rediscovering a woman she learns she barely knew. Through her mother's art, which illustrates the book, Johnson sees early feminist yearnings and images that indicate her mother may have intuited very early her pending death by cancer. Parting Company offers a wider spectrum of emotions and experiences through 14 first-person accounts by a variety of lay and professional caregivers, including a minister, doctor, paramedic, and funeral home director. Pearson and Stubbs, a writer and a developmental psychologist, each had also cared for a dying parent. The essays are aimed at conveying the experience the authors call "death-in-life," of being a caregiver, witness, and survivor of another person's death. --Vanessa Bush

Library Journal Review

Filling a gap in the death and dying literature, coauthors Pearson (The Practical Psychic) and Stubbs, a developmental psychologist and educator, assembled this collection of personal accounts of caregivers of the dying. Many books provide help to the dying or grieving, but countless people embark on the care of a dying loved one with little knowledge of what to expect and few resources to draw upon. These engaging and unflinching narratives told by a demographically diverse group of caregivers provide a variety of viewpoints, from family members and friends to healthcare professionals and counselors. The caregivers tell their stories in their own words with minimal editing. Acknowledging that each reader may learn something different from these accounts, the authors limit interpretation and social analysis to the introduction and end commentary sections. This highly readable collection is recommended for all libraries.ÄAnnette Haines, Central Michigan Univ. Libs., Mount Pleasant (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.